Subject: (urth) Sun Cycle questions

From: Roy C. Lackey <rclackey at stic.net>
Date: Mon, 17 Dec 2007 21:54:00 +0000

Michael Dale wrote:
[snip]
>>How long between Typhon's rule and the coming of the New Sun?  The Whorl
has lasted for 300 years, but Marble impies at one point that it could have
been 3,000 (saying that she always is misplacing a digit).  However the
Soldiers reimply that the World is designed to last 300 years and that is is
after its design age.<<

The most accepted figure for the time period between Typhon and Severian is
about 1,000 years. The _Whorl_ had been in flight for 300+ years (another 30
or 40 so, but I forget the correct number).

>>However I still say that Blue and Green are in a different system and are
not Earth and Lune (or Venus).<<

That is the prevailing wisdom, and in an interview with Jim Jordan (aka
Nutria) Wolfe appears to say as much.

>>It would be neat if whatever technology that created the powersource for
creating and running the Whorl is what actually caused the Black hole in the
sun.  I always thought that Typhon was taking energy is large amounts from
the Sun as a power source.<<

I made such a proposal myself, four years ago.

http://www.urth.net/urth/archives/v0309/4071.txt.shtml

>>On a side note:
>>A question I have always wondered is why Typhon didn't equip the Whorl is
FTL (Faster than Light) technology.<<

Sidestepping the question of human FTL ships in Briah, but relevant in this
context. It is generally accepted that the _Whorl_ was traveling at some
percentage of light speed, such that, with deceleration, the ship took about
300 years, ship time, to reach the Blue-Green system. Then a few decades
passed. While the ship was traveling at relativistic speed, about a thousand
years went by on Urth. That allowed Silkhorn, by way of astral travel to
Urth, to meet young Severian.

-Roy